


Eternity Eventually Will Linger

by mithrel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blanket Permission, Character Death Fix, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Fluff and Angst, Human Gabriel, M/M, Podfic Welcome, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-23
Updated: 2010-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-11 08:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn’t cry when he feels Gabriel die. Title from "Victoriam Speramus" by Krypteria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eternity Eventually Will Linger

Sam doesn’t cry when he feels Gabriel die. He doesn’t cry when he watches the DVD.

He doesn’t cry until he’s in the bathroom that night, about to take a shower, and catches sight of the handprint Gabriel had left on his hip.

Gabriel’s dead, he _knows_ he’s dead. But he can’t help but hope. Gabriel had been the thorn in their sides for years, the one they couldn’t get rid of. Sam hopes he’s managed to somehow survive this time too, but he knows in his heart it’s impossible.

When he’s nervous or afraid, his hand starts straying to his hip, to the reminder of Gabriel’s claim on him. At night he’d let his hands drift over it.

Dean had gotten his faith back, but now Sam has lost his, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get it back.

They eventually find Cas, and manage to seal Lucifer back in his box, but Sam can’t even be happy the world was saved. It isn’t like all evil has been banished and the three of them can settle down. There are still wendigos and werewolves and restless ghosts to be put down, and no matter how many they gank there’ll be more waiting in the wings, so what’s the point?

Dean seems happy enough to go back to the small-fries, and Cas is shaping up to be a pretty good hunter, but Sam wants to be done. He doesn’t know what happens to angels when they die, if they disappear into nothing or are confined to Heaven or what, but there’s been no sign of Gabriel since that night at the Elysian Fields Hotel.

Then one day Dean and Cas are out looking up leads. Sam's stayed behind, because he's fighting the flu, and needs to rest while he can. He’s lying in bed, trying to make his nose stop running by force of will, when he hears a soft, “Hey, Sammy.”

He looks over to see Gabriel, just as he’d looked the last time Sam saw him, and for a moment his heart leaps, but… “No. I’m delirious. This isn’t real.”

Gabriel snorts. He snaps his fingers and abruptly Sam’s head is clear and his fever is gone. “You were saying?”

Sam sits up slowly. “Gabriel…” he breathes, still not daring to believe it.

“Yeah. It’s me, kiddo,” he says, coming and sitting on the bed.

“But…but you were dead.”

“I’d quote Carey Elwes here, but I think you’d slap me.”

“ _How?_ ” Sam’s head is spinning. Gabriel’s alive, he’s _back…_

Gabriel’s hand drifts down to Sam’s right hip. “I left a mark on you.”

Sam swallows. “Yeah, so?”

“That mark was a link. It led me back here.”

“But–”

“It was difficult, and it wouldn’t have worked if you’d given up on me, but you kept hoping.”

“Difficult?”

“I burned through most of my Grace to do it. Getting rid of your flu used up the last of it. For all intents and purposes I’m human.”

“Human…” Sam repeats. That’s all he seems to be able to do.

Gabriel nods, his expression mournful.

“It’s not so bad, being human,” Sam says. _Much better to be human than dead._

Gabriel’s miserable expression doesn’t go away, so Sam leans down and kisses him softly.

Gabriel clings to him, one hand behind his neck, the other drifting down to cup his hip. Sam feels the mark burn and pulls back with a gasp. “What–”

“The link’s still in place, but it’s reacting to me differently now that I’m human.”

“Differently how?”

“What we had before was a soul-bond. I could find you even with the sigils, and heal you even if I wasn’t there. Now it’s more like the bond between twins.”

“So you still know what I’m thinking?”

“Not thinking, no, but feeling.”

“Does it work both ways?” Sam asks.

“It should.”

Sam concentrates. There’s something there, something that wasn’t there before. Before, the link had been one way: he didn’t sense anything from Gabriel. Now, he feels Gabriel’s desperate joy at being back, his gratitude to Sam for bringing him back and most of all his overwhelming love.

Sam stares at Gabriel and reaches up to cup his cheek. Gabriel sighs and leans into him, and Sam thinks that in a lot of ways this is better than what they had before.


End file.
